Destabilizing Machismo: Masculine and Feminine Constructions in the Theater of Susana Torres Molina

Abstract

This thesis explores the construction of masculinity in Argentina, as represented in two plays by Susana Torres Molina, _...Y a otra cosa mariposa_ (1981) and _Una noche cualquiera_ (1999). In these two plays, the construction of sexual difference is portrayed as occurring within a masculine point of view, wherein it is explicit that men have the power to define, from a self-referential standpoint, their masculine identity, through contrast with a construction of the female. Rather than consider masculine and feminine as two parts of the same whole, gender, Torres Molina's works represent machismo as a two-part system, with masculine and female as distinct wholes, fundamentally different. The self-referentiality of machismo rejects the participation of women, subordinating and reducing them to the level of the object of conversation, characterized by biological essentialisms, instead of a constructed, subjective identity.